Photo by Stephanie Keith
Blue Hour is serving elevated hot chicken and chopped cheese in a Bushwick gas station
The owners of Little Flower Cafe are serving up late night halal fair from a takeout window in the Myrtle Avenue BP station
@brooklyn_magazine Blue Hour, a late night takeout window in a Bushwick BP gas station, is serving up elevated (and halal) meals for under $10. Check out the “Dragon Boy” fried chicken sando and the chopped cheese. #bluehour #choppedcheese #bushwick #brooklyn #halal #friedchickensandwhich ♬ original sound – Brooklyn Magazine
The next time you’re in Bushwick gassing up your car at the BP station on Myrtle Avenue, you might consider getting a little fuel for yourself, too.
Blue Hour is a new late night takeout window serving up halal hot chicken sandwiches, kebabas and chopped cheese smack dab in the middle of the gas station.
It’s Ali Zaman’s first venture outside Astoria and Long Island City, where his family operates Sami’s Kabab House. In 2022, Zaman opened Little Flower Cafe in Queens. Blue Hour was developed with Little Flower partner, his cousin Mohamed Ghiasi, the son of the owner of Dunya Kabab House, an Afghan restaurant in Kensington.
When two opened their elevated fast food restaurant in a Bushwick gas station last month, they were trying to recreate a vibe with a menu that they remembered from growing up in Queens.
“Most of this menu is based around my cousin and I’s experience of eating late night in New York City,” says Ghiasi. Their menu includes all the classics like a smashburger, a hot chicken sandwich, chopped cheese and shoestring fries, but with an Afghani twist and a few Afghani mainstays. “We’re Afghan so we had to put chicken over rice because this is our staple.”
Zaman credits his friend and business partner Devlin Claro with coining the name Blue Hour, “because we want it to be late night-early morning business, he said, ‘Why don’t we call it Blue Hour since it evokes that time of day and the night?’”
As for the location, in a stroke of good luck, the gas station location owner — who also has a franchise near Dunya — approached Ghiasi with the idea of setting up shop. It was, according to him, a perfect match.
“The thesis behind this whole restaurant is being a late-night hub and the gas station location seemed the most intriguing,” says Ghiasi. “Outside of New York in a lot of other states, there’s this whole culture of eating in gas stations. We wanted to bring that kind of energy, that kind of feel into New York.”
With the large parking area for gas customers, you might just miss the sign that says “Blue Hour” but you’d be remiss to do so, because everything we tried, we loved — from the “Dragon Boy” chicken sandwich to the chopped cheese. Don’t let its humble surroundings fool you, this is a very sophisticated take on the late night food hub.
Blue Hour is located inside the BP gas station at 1525 Myrtle Ave and is open Sunday through Thursday noon to 10 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 3 a.m.
